More and more people are using bikes for transportation, and according to one Binghamton University alumnus, they may be the future of how we travel.
Jay Walder graduated from BU in 1980 and is now the president and CEO of Motivate, a company that designs, deploys and manages bike-share systems. He spoke to students, alumni and Binghamton residents in a talk on Friday at the University Downtown Center, sponsored by the Alumni Relations Office.
Most transportation is focused on increasing efficiency of already-existing methods, Walder explained, but he wants to change the entire transportation system.
“What you’re seeing in cities all around the world is recognition that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” he said. “People are throwing away the old playbook and they’re reaching for new things.”
In his talk, Walder said cities today are growing in complexity, and with that growth comes an increased need for transportation. In his 30 years of experience, he has worked for the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Hong Kong, as the managing director of finance and planning at Transport for London (TfL) and as the chairman and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York. One of his most significant changes to the MTA are the countdown clocks in NYC subways.
But now, Walder said, he wants to focus on changing transportation systems. For him, it’s a matter of conveniently fitting transportation into the ways cities are shaped.
“If you think about the cities that we know, there’s absolutely no question that traditional public transit shaped twentieth century cities,” Walder said. “Today’s cities are more complex than that, today’s cities aren’t being shaped anymore by the path of public transit.”
The emergence of bike sharing is not an incremental change in transportation, Walder said, but instead is a whole new approach. He said that in the past 15 years, bike shares have grown from four programs to 850 programs worldwide. Motivate operates in over 11 cities worldwide. It is the parent company of Citi-Bike in NYC, a bike-share company which allows members to pick up a bike in one location and park it at another once they arrive at their destination.
“Unlike public transportation in the way we’ve come to know it, you decide where you want to go, you decide when you want to go,” Walder said.
Jim Broschart, the vice president for advancement at BU and an organizer of the event, said he hoped this influential alumnus could inspire students to create an impact in the future.
“[Students get] an appreciation for a diverse pathway to [their] own success,” Broschart said. “Maybe some specific knowledge about the components of his career, his work, but also some appreciation that alumni are important in the life of the University and can have an impact on them day to day.”
Shane Tracy, president of the BU Bike Share (BUBS) and a senior majoring in industrial engineering, said the talk was an excellent way to see the possible future for bike share programs such as BUBS. He said the path that Walder took was inspirational.
“He came from Binghamton, and you saw where he’s gone,” Tracy said. “The ability for Binghamton to bring in an alumnus like this, and show the success they have had, is all very exciting.”